You know what isn't fun? Waking up in the middle of the night sobbing because you dreamt that your social worker called to inform you that one of your letters of reference was rejected by China for being sarcastic and that you'd have to start over and somehow come up with an additional $700. Not cool.
I realize that this is only a dream and that we are actually right on track with our paperwork, but it still freaks me out. I keep waiting for something to go wrong. After all the crap we've been through up to this point I have a hard time believing that this will go smoothly.
So where are we now? Well, we are waiting on my background check from MN, then our physicals (during which we get our first AIDS test...um...woohoo?), after that we have one more interview with our social worker. At that point homestudy will be done! If we were doing a domestic adoption, our work would be pretty much done at that point (I could be wrong, let me know if I am). Since we like to take the most difficult road available, we still have pages upon pages of paperwork to take care of. I have to get a passport, US immigration and FBI has to do fingerprint checks, we both have to take 10 hours of parenting classes, we have to write a bunch of letters to the Chinese government about why we want to adopt and are not allowed to say anything about God or politics in them, financial statements from a CPA, collect the hair of a unicorn, and so on.
We get a lot of questions now about if our paperwork is done. Extra no. It wont be completed until about June. At times it's extremely frustrating. We just want a child. It's that time of year when everyone around us is having babies. This time, it's nothing but girls. In some ways we are super excited. After all, we know our girl will have plenty of cousins. Some days it just seems like too much to deal with. The waiting, the red tape, the money. Oh the money! Adoption is extremely expensive; prohibitively so, for many people. We'll make it work, it's just going to be a bit tricky at times. I just have to keep telling myself that we can do this and that it will be worth it.
You'd still have to do the hours of classes and finger print checks. Along with all the same back ground checks and financial statements. Oh and proof of insurance. And then there are the interviews which are separate from the home studies and cannot be combined. You have home studies before and home studies after.
ReplyDeleteTHEN - You have to convince a birth mother to pick you.
I think international vs domestic both have their pros and cons. If you were going to domestic 30 is almost too old rather than barely old enough.
Yes it will be SO worth it!
SO worth it!! You guys are great parents already!
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